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Wet spring means lower yields, higher prices for locally grown fruits and vegetables

Farmers are doing what they can to salvage growing season

PENINSULA, Ohio — Farmers everywhere know that when you dance with Mother Nature, she always leads. 

"She controls it all and we just have to deal with what she gives us", says Paula Szalay of the popular Szalay's Sweet Corn Farm and Market in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. 

Her family has been dancing with Mother Nature on their farm since 1931. This year has brought huge challenges from delays in planting some of their fields to difficulty in finding quality produce to stock the farm market. Paula is the one who does the buying. 

"You have to be careful" she said recently in an interview with WKYC photojournalist Carl Bachtel.  "Like cucumbers and pickles. They don't like a lot of moisture. Strawberries don't like this much moisture. Most of the produce doesn't so you have to be very careful what you're buying."

Szalay's is known for it's delicious sweet corn and they've battled to get the crop planted. Some of the corn looks great, nearly shoulder high and tassling out. Other fields are just getting started. Paula describes the process. 

"For us this year, we've done a lot of patchwork farming. You might take an acre out of this field and an acre out of that field and try to combine it all together to get your full crop." 

Paula tells me things are a few days late, but they plan to pick their first ears around July 10, but as she said before, "It all depends on Mother Nature." 

Szalay's Farm Market is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to  7 p.m. and Paula also says they have their corn maze planted and it should be up and ready to for for their Fall harvest festival in September. For more information, check out their website www.szalaysfarm.com

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